Improv: Deserted
by CritterKeeper
Summary: Darien shows up for work, but it looks like no one else bothered!


Yes, the chat room was quiet again tonight....I meant to stop this several lines earlier, but it didn't work out that way. This was improv-ed to a small audience. Anyone wants to join us in chat, and make requests, feel free! :-)  
  
  
Darien walked down the hallways of the Agency. It was so quiet that even his sneakered footsteps echoed off of the walls.  
  
He swung around the doorway into the Official's office, expecting to see his boss and partner already waiting impatiently.  
  
The room was empty. He checked his watch. It wasn't daylight savings time. He wasn't late enough for them to give up on him.  
  
"Hello? Anybody here?" He knew it was silly, he could see that the room was empty, but it was instinct or something.  
  
He looked out into the hallway, which was still deserted, then back at the empty room. He headed for the office he and Hobbes shared. It was just as empty. He checked his partner's desk for any sign of whether he'd been in today. There was a pill bottle in the top drawer. No idea whether it had been there overnight or not. An open file folder, but Hobbes wasn't always the neatest guy on the block; it could have been left out overnight.  
  
He checked his own desk, in case there was a note or memo. Nothing new, just his own miscellaneous clutter. Sighing, he stuck his head back out into the hallway. Still empty. He headed for the elevator, checking doorways and offices along the way.  
  
The Agency had more space than personnel, and most of the offices were unoccupied, but there were a few agents besides himself and Hobbes. None of them were in evidence now.  
  
He watched the elevator doors open, half hoping to see someone there. No such luck. Walking into the small space, he muttered to himself as the doors closed before him.  
  
"Okay....I know it's not my birthday, so there's no surprise party waiting. Don't know if it's anybody else's birthday, nobody tells me anything. But it kinda misses the point to have me here at all, if they're not gonna invite me. I coulda slept in."  
  
The hallway in the basement was empty, but that wasn't unusual. He fumbled in his pocket for his keycard. He was starting to edge from annoyance to worry. What would he do if the Keep was empty too? He hadn't a clue where to start looking for missing secret agents. Call the cops? And tell them what? He was a secret agent, and his agency had disappeared on him?  
  
Darien slid his card through the scanner, wondering if there was a record kept of who went in and when.  
  
His first thought as the door slid open was relief. There was someone there after all. Claire, Hobbes, Eberts, and the Official registered first. They were looking towards something on the other side of the room, turned towards him as the door slid open.  
  
Everything went into slow motion.  
  
Claire was closest, and he could see her expression, tense, frightened. Her hair swung as her head turned. Her eyes widened as she spotted him. Her lips began to move.  
  
The sliding door was moving slowly, too. Revealing, inch by inch, men in black, with ski masks, and guns. Big guns. They were slowly turning towards Darien too.  
  
There were papers littering the floor. Smashed equipment. And a figure at Claire's computer. His back was to Darien, but he had an awful realization that he knew this man, a pistol clutched in one hand as the other flew over the keyboard.  
  
Claire's voice, distorted as time slowed even further, calling out. Hobbes, starting to move forward as the gunmen were distracted, brought up short as one of them turned back towards them. The figure at the keyboard turning, gun rising to ready position.  
  
Arnaud smiled when he saw who was in the doorway.  
  
"Now isn't this just perfect?"  
  
Darien could remember Hobbes chastising him, telling him he really did have to learn how to duck faster. He was moving too now, dodging towards the cover of the doorway. He didn't have to decide to quicksilver, adrenaline was taking care of that for him, the cool liquid oozing out of his pores.  
  
He was halfway invisible, halfway to the shelter of a solid wall between himself and the guns, but he could see Arnaud's finger tensing. Guns never sounded quite like they did on TV. The little explosion was duller, flatter.  
  
A sharp pain in his chest, right over his heart.  
  
"Aw, crap!" he muttered as his shoulder hit the wall, the quicksilver turning his vision silver and something else turning it gray and dim.  
  
The elevator was too far. The doors had slid closed. There were other doors in the hall, but they might as well have been miles away. He could hear footsteps inside the Keep, could hear Claire screaming his name, hear Hobbes shouting.  
  
He looked down at his chest, already fading from his vision as the quicksilver coated him. The viscous stuff was creeping up the shaft of a tranquilizer dart as well. He reached up to try to pull the damned thing out. His chest hurt from the impact. His unseen hand fumbled and found its goal. It hurt worse coming out.  
  
He could hear the dart clatter as it hit the floor. He hoped Arnaud would grope across the floor looking for him and stick himself with the needle.  
  
His breath was ragged, and when he tried to stand, the world tilted and the floor slid out from beneath him. He was almost unconscious by the time his head impacted with the cement.  
  



End file.
